Last updated on December 15, 2009
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Here’s a photo of my desk from a few minutes ago, after fitting a light behind the iMac. Taking a cue from home theater stuff where placing a dim light behind a TV provides nice ambient light and increases apparent contrast in the display, I fitted a 9W daylight colored compact fluorescent light† behind the display on a cheap clip-on light. This makes a nice glow behind the monitor and on the white ceiling which provides enough light for computer and peripherial use, but is dim enough to make for comfortable evening working. This light will eventually be switched using an X10 appliance switch, just as the normal desk lamp is, but these devices haven’t been received yet. Thanks to eBay they were cheap and should be here in a week or so.
Beneath the iMac you may notice the Millet Hybrid Maxed headphone amp which I built last year. It is connected to the AMB γ1 DAC which sits nicely on the Twelve South BackPack. Audio output for non-system sounds are switched from the main speakers to the DAC (and thus the headphones) as needed using Rogue Amoeba’s SoundSource. This works out well for when Danielle and I are both at our desks with audio playing, as respective use of headphones keeps us from driving each other insane. A few new cables are needed to sort out the connections without a rat’s nest, but these are on back order and likely won’t be here until the beginning of next year.
All in all, this is shaping up to be a nice workspace. The iMac is doing everything asked of it with gusto, the display is excellent, and the overall sound level in my office is down to profanely low levels. This is very nice.
† The lamp is a cheap Home Depot 5000K lamp with a rather poor CRI. It is not appropriate for photographic or color-critical work, but it’s just fine for room illumination, particularly indirect illumination bouncing off of a blue-painted wall.